OOOOO, MUQTADA! Things don't look so hot for everybody's favorite radical Shi'a cleric / would-be theocrat. Widely despised in his erstwhile city of refuge, Muqtada al-Sadr is showing increasing signs that he's not, in fact, the next Khomeini. Which strikes me as good news for just about everyone, American and Iraqi, who isn't al-Sadr himself. Doubtless I'm being especially Pollyannaish, but this guy seems like he's got "footnote-bound" written all over him: history will remember Muqtada al-Sadr as the last gasp of tyranny before the non-crazies took over and established some form of liberal, consensual government. One wonders, though: will al-Sadr be remembered as Karl Doenitz, or as Eugen Levine? That is: is this really the last gasp, or will the the following period of liberal-democratic calm be merely a prelude to a big hocking up of the phlegm of tyranny? (How's that for a metaphor?) Man, I hope it's the latter.


(Also, I hope this makes things better, rather than worse.)